For the third time, a court has thrown out a lawsuit by Bandimere Speedway that claimed pandemic-era public health orders violated the rights of the track and its owners.
U.S. District Judge Nina Wang ruled Monday that Bandimere’s claims had already been litigated in state courts and therefore could not, by law, be relitigated in her courtroom.
Bandimere, along with owners Lorraine and John Bandimere Jr., sued Gov. Jared Polis and Mark Johnson, a former director of the Jefferson County Public Health Department, last July. It later modified the lawsuit to exclude Polis, leaving Johnson as the only defendant.
The Bandimeres alleged that Johnson violated their 1st and 14th Amendment rights when he tried to prohibit the Morrison track from hosting its “Fourth of July God and Country Rally” in summer 2020, then suspended its liquor license and sued the Bandimeres.
They alleged that Johnson used unconstitutional public health orders to punish the speedway because John Bandimere Jr. had criticized the orders in a radio interview.
“In all honesty, this right now is not about damages. This is about the Constitution,” John Bandimere III told BusinessDen last year. “You can go down that path, obviously, and there was a lot of revenue that was lost. But this is really, truly a constitutional thing.”
The Bandimeres first took their case to Jefferson County District Court, which dismissed it in 2021. They then appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which dismissed the case in September 2022. In November, Johnson asked that the federal case likewise be dismissed, since it involved the same parties and same arguments as the others.
Eight months later, Wang agreed with Johnson and put an end to the case Monday.
Johnson was represented by Amber Munck with the Jefferson County Attorney’s Office. She and the office declined to comment on Wang’s decision.
The Bandimeres and their racetrack were represented by Randy Corporon, an Aurora lawyer and conservative talk radio host. When asked to comment Monday, the Bandimeres deferred to Corporon, who did not respond to a request to weigh in on Wang’s order.
Unrelated to the court case, Bandimere Speedway will close Oct. 22 after 65 years in Morrison. The Bandimeres are considering moving to another location, they said in April.
